The present invention relates generally to electrical measuring systems and, more particularly, to a ratio circuit for measuring and indicating the ratio of an unknown component value to a known component value, or for measuring and indicating the value of an unknown electrical component.
The use of Wheatstone bridges in laboratory and production work to determine the values and accuracy of electrical components is well known. However, such bridges require the operator to apply nulling techniques and a user wanting to know percentage error must compute accuracy. This presents an undesirable cost burden to even small volume measurements.
Now systems for measuring directly values of resistance, capacitance or inductance are expensive and complex, and do not provide direct readings in percentage error. In practice the value of an electrical component is measured as plus or minus a value. When testing multiple like components, it is desirable to be concerned with the accuracy of a particular component within specified limits. For many reasons including convenience to unskilled operators, it is desirable to have such an instrument read directly in percentage error so that the operator need know only the tolerance limits to accept or reject tested components.